The Domination

Chapter Seven

CHATEAU RETOUR PLANTATION

TOURAINE PROVINCE

APRIL 1947

It was sunset when the vehicles reached the boundaries of the plantation. They had been driving along the north bank of the Loire, on the road that ran along the embankment of the levee. Tiredness dragged at Marya like water, a band of weariness over the brow weighting her head, and still the scene brought her out of herself.

The river lay to their left as they drove westward past ruined Tours, broad and slow and blue, long islets of yellow sand like teardrops of gold starred with the green of osier willow. It was mild, with the gentle humid freshness of spring in the Val of Touraine; the sun was on the western horizon, throwing the long shadows of cypress and poplar towards them, flickering bars of black against the crushed white limestone of the road. Clouds drifted like cotton puffs in a sky turning dark royal blue above, shading to day-color and the flaming magenta shade of bougainvillea on the horizon.

Down the bank to the river was long grass, intensely green, broken by clumps of lilac in white and purple; on the narrow strip of marshy ground along the base of the embankment were willow trees leaning their long trailing branches into the slow-moving water, over carpets of yellow flag iris.

I am so tired and so afraid, Marya thought, sliding the window down and breathing in. Forty kilometers an hour, and streamers of hair the color of birchwood flicked out from under her kerchief. But this minute is the gift of God; He is here, so here home is. The fleeting scent of the lilacs, a delicate sweetness, the heavier scent of a flowering chestnut tree. Country smells, warmer and more spicy than her native Malopolska. She smiled and sighed, ceasing to fight the weariness. How had Homer put it, in the mouths of those fierce bronze-sworded Achaean warriors, so long ago? “It is well to yield unto the night.”

* * *

Chantal raised her head from her hands, breaking the silence that had kept her crouched and swaying with the motion of the vehicle for hours past.

“Are you so happy, then, nun?” she asked. Black circles lay under her eyes, like bruises. She should be hungry, sleepy, but there was only a scratchiness beneath her eyelids and a sour feeling in her gut that left a bitter taste at the back of the mouth. This was her first time so far from Lyon if you did not count one train trip to Paris before the War, when she had marched in a Party youth group delegation for May Day.

The Pole smiled at her. “For a moment, Chantal, for a moment. Life is a distance race, not a sprint. Tomorrow I may be in terror, or in pain, so now I take a minute of joy to strengthen myself.” A chuckle. “Or as the kitchen sister used to say when I was a novice, ‘You only need to wash one dish at a time.’ ” Grimly: “God made the world, we humans make its horrors. Let me enjoy a moment where our handiwork has not marred His.”

The communist snorted and turned sideways in her seat, looking out her window. Humility, she thought. The opiate of the people.

Although there would be few people here, few of her sort. The fields were turning dark, and there was a deafening chorus of field crickets, nowhere a light or sign of man. She shuddered; this was the country, and she a child of streets and buildings. Empty, the home of the brutal rurals, the quadrupeds, as the Party men called peasants. Unfamiliar noises echoed; birds, she supposed, and shivered again at the thought of woods and animals and emptiness with no sustenance or hiding place. Insects crawling through everything, dirt, shit from animals lying about. Pigs and cows and horses, sly-faced farmers and beaten beast-of-burden women; all that and the Draka too.

She shivered and hugged her shoulders. I can face death, she thought. It was dying, the way of it, that was the problem.

Marya turned back to the window and sighed again. Anger so fierce was like vodka; one glass at the right time could give you the strength of a bear, too much or too often and it ate you out from the inside. Anger demanded a direction, an expression; if you could not turn it on the ones who aroused it, your mind turned it on yourself, turned hatred to self-hatred and self-contempt. Such is the nature of fallen man, she thought. Also, anger and hatred gave an enemy too much grip onyou. The emotions locked you to them, and in hatred as in love one took on the lineaments of the mind’s focus; only God and His creation, and mankind in general, were safe targets for such feelings. Pity was safer, charity, the unconquerable Christian meekness off which an oppressor’s physical strength slid like claws from glass.

Your way is hard, Lord . . .

They turned left and north off the main road, between two tall pillars of new fitted stone, with a chain slung between them at three times head-height. She read:

Chateau Retour Plantation

Est. 1945

Edward and Tanya von Shrakenberg, Landholders

Beyond were the remains of a small village, an old Loire riverport of white tufa-stone cottages and shops. It was being . . . not destroyed, disassembled; she could see piles of salvaged windows, doors, piles of stone block chipped clean of mortar, flat farm wagons piled with black Angers roof slates. A few workers were about stacking tools and clearing up for the next day’s labor; they paused and bowed as the cars passed. Marya looked questioningly at Yasmin.

“Port Boulet,” she said drowsily, straightening up and rubbing her face with a handkerchief dipped in acceder from a thermos. “Ahhh, tha’s bettah. Port Boulet; we knockin’ it down to build the Quartahs.” Seeing the look of puzzlement, she continued: “The field hands’ quarters, the village, the mastahs doan’ like folks livin’ scattered about, wants ’em all near the Great House. And fo’ buildin’s, smithy and barn and infirmary and suchlike. Even puttin’ up a church, bringin’ it piece by piece from over t’ Chouze-sur-Loire, a bit west of hereabouts.”

The nun nodded. It made sense; a pattern of great estates worked from a common center made for concentrated settlement, just as small single-family holdings often meant scattered farmsteads.

“We’s not long to home, now,” Yasmin said, looking over to her father where he slept stretched out with his rifle by his side and his graying head on a folded coat. “Poppa,” she called softly, nudging him cautiously in the foot. “Poppa, almost there. Ten minutes.”

He stirred, touched the weapon, then levered himself up, yawning hugely. “Ahh, gutgenuk,” he said; the nun filed it away, another of the dialect words that sprinkled his English. That one sounded Dutch or German. “Nice t’be backs under m’own roof.”

Home, Marya thought, and fought a new shiver of apprehension. A stopping place at least.

She forced her eyes back to the darkening fields outside; they were driving north now, away from the river and into the flat alluvial vienne of Bourgueil. There was a line of low hills ahead, five or six kilometers, visible in glimpses between the lines and clumps of trees that cut the horizon. Already those were shapes whose upper branches caught blackly at the light of the three-quarters moon. The open ground was still touched lightly with the last pinkish light; a big field of winter wheat to their left, bluish-green and already calf-high. Her countrywoman’s eye found it reassuring; flourishing, this was a fat earth. Potatoes to the right, neat rows well-hoed, about twenty acres. Marya could see the marks of recent field boundaries within the standing crops, lines and dimples brought out by the long shadows of evening.

Smaller fields thrown together, she thought. Then they turned west, onto a narrower lane bordered on both sides by oaks huge and ancient, into a belt of orchard. The convoy switched on its headlights, bringing textures springing out in the narrow cones of blue-white light. Swirling horizontal columns of ground fog rising with the night, rough-mottled oak bark and huge gnarled roots, trefoil leaves above their heads underlit to a flickering glow. The apricot trees beyond with their pruned circular tops, bands of whitewash on their trunks, a starring of blossom and a sudden intoxicating rush of scent. Then through darkened gardens to a gravel way before the looming gables of . . . not a house, not a castle, really—a chateau.

Marya had a confused view of towers round and square, patterned in alternate blocks of white limestone and dull-red brick, before the vehicles swung over a gravel drive that crunched and popped beneath the tires. They halted in a glare of floodlights before the main doors, and the silence rang in ears accustomed to wind-rush. The door of the car opened and she stumbled out onto the drive, staggered slightly with bone-heavy weariness and the stiffness of a body confined far too long. People were bustling about, servants in dark trousers or skirts and white shirts, lifting parcels and bundles with shouts. The coffle was unshackled from the flatbed truck and led away, the vehicle followed, driven down the lane to some garage or storage area.

The nun blinked again beside Chantal, trying to flog her mind into alertness. Stretcher parties were taking Issac and the lightly wounded serfs from the truck. Beside her Tom was stripping the magazine from his rifle, handing weapon and bandolier to another servant; that one joined four more staggering under the dismounted twin-barrel from the front car, all shepherded off by the overseers. To an armory, she supposed, although the ex-Janissary kept the fighting knife in his boot, and two steel-tipped sticks rested in his gear bag. The cars reversed and moved away as the crowd melted into the house with their burdens.

A woman shouldered her way toward them against the movement, waving and calling with a wide smile.

“ ’Allo! ’Allo, Tom!” A Frenchwoman in a good plain dark dress, with a baby on her arm and a boy of four or so walking by her side. The child sprinted ahead and leapt at Tom, was caught in the thick arms, swept up laughing and seated on a shoulder. The boy was towhaired, but the six-months babe in the woman’s arms was as dark as Yasmin; the Frenchwoman was in her thirties, well-preserved with a robust village look about her, big-breasted and deep-hipped. She embraced Yasmin’s father with her free arm, was kissed with surprising gentleness.

“ ’Allo, Yasmin,” she said, as the younger girl took the baby, who was looking out from a cocoon of blanket with wide dark eyes and a dubious expression.

“How y’all, Annette?” Yasmin replied, cooing and blowing at the infant, who replied with a broad toothless smile, waving pudgy fists and drooling. “And how my little sister? Eh? Eh?”

“I am well,” Annette replied in slow, careful English. “Justin is well; little Fleurette is well.” She stepped back from Tom and glared.

“I am happy also to see that my husband is well. After an affaire of shootings, such as he promised me was behind him, at his age one expects a man to act with some sense, non? But of a certainty, no: they are all little boys who must play with their toys, n’est pas? One man already I have lost with this soldier’s nonsense.” She crossed her arms on her broad bosom. “Do I ask too much that the second refrain? Or perhaps consorting with all the courtesans of Paris and Lyon has restored his youth?”

Tom grinned, reached up to tug on the boy Justin’s hair and hand up a rock candy, then spread his hands in a placating gesture.

“Sweetlin’, it weren’t nohows my doin’.” He fished in his pocket, came out with a velvet case. “An’ Paris, that where I gits this fo’ you.”

“Hmmmp.” She opened it: pearl eardrops. “Hmmp.” A sigh. “Ah, well, d’accord, there is perhaps a ragout waiting on the stove.” She turned to Yasmin, took in the two new house servants with an incline of her head.

“You will join us, daughter?”

Yasmin shook her head, handed the baby back to its mother with unconscious reluctance. “Thanks kindly but I’s got things to do; settle Marya and Chantal here down, ’n Mistis may need me. Mebbeso tomorrow ’round lunchtime?” A grin. “ ’Sides, ain’t nice to separate man ’n wife after they’s been apart two weeks.”

“Sho ’nuff.” Tom laughed, and swung a hand that landed on Annette’s buttocks with a sharp crack. She jumped, squealed, and dug a sharp elbow into his ribs.

“For that, my old, perhaps you sleep on the floor and learn manners.” To Marya and Chantal in French: “Mesdames, you will be weary from your journey. Another time we will speak: we have a cottage not far from the manor you must visit. I will introduce you to others of us.” A smile. “You will find us all very much en famille here on Chateau Retour. It is needful.”

Yasmin watched as the four moved off, the adults with their arms about each other’s waists, boy seated astride Tom’s neck. A fond look touched her eyes.

“Annette good fo’ Poppa,” she said. “After Momma die, he get old faster than needs.” Shrewdly: “Good fo’ her, too. Her man die in the War, an’ there widows aplenty: three wenches for every buck. Annette she kinda practical ’bout things, like you French mostly is; do y’all good to listen to her, she talk sense. Set her cap for Poppa, land him a year ago, get things fixed up regular with a preacher an’ all.” A sigh. “Pretty weddin’: Mistis Tanya set store by Poppa. Well, time’s a-wastin’.”

She put a hand under their elbows and moved them off toward the steps; Marya felt blank, as if her mind was storing information at a rate beyond her exhaustion’s capacity to sort it. The family of the master and mistress were still grouped by the doors; the three serf women halted just in earshot and made obeisance, waiting. Marya glanced up under lowered lids, examining the man who also owned her; he and Tanya were standing face to face, both hands linked.

He was tall, even for a Draka. Light khaki trousers and shirt showed a broad-shouldered, taper-waisted silhouette; muscled arms, and a sharp V of deltoid from shoulders to neck. His face had a cousin’s similarity to his wife’s, a masculine version; dark tan, set off by the wheat-colored hair and gray eyes. Eye, rather: the left socket was covered by a leather patch and thong. Scarring below and above, deep enough to notch the bone; his little finger was missing on that hand, and there were more scars up the back of it and along the arm. A boy of perhaps nine stood beside him, a younger version but with the mother’s brown-and-bronze hair.

“ . . . worst problem was the baby tryin’ to get out and kick the bushmen to death, leastways that’s what it felt like,” Tanya was saying. She turned her head. “Ahh, here’s Yasmin with the two bookkeepers. The light-haired wench here’s the one I told you about, has medical trainin’ as well, saved Issac’s life.”

“You could always pick them, my love,” the man said. Deep voice, slightly hoarse; the three women stepped forward and the new arrivals made the hand-over-eyes bow they had been taught.

“Up, look up,” he said to them. “We save that for formal occasions, here in the country.”

He rested his right hand on the holster of his automatic pistol as he turned to them; not a menacing gesture, simply habit. The other hand gripped his wife’s; he was still smiling from the reunion as he looked them over with swift care, turning Marya’s head sideways with a finger.

“Slav?” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she answered. “Polish.” At least he isn’t looking at our teeth, she thought. Of course, he had access to dental records.

“That was swift thinkin’ and nerve, savin’ Issac in the ambush. Good wench.” He turned to Yasmin. “These two look exhausted, settle them in.” A grin. “You worn down from travelin’ too?”

Yasmin smiled back from under her lashes. “Wouldn’t say so, Mastah,” she murmured.

Tanya laughed outright and tossed a key to Yasmin. “This for the cuffs. And since you’re not tired . . . when you’re finished unpackin’, collect Solange and attend upstairs to help with our celebration; ’bout eleven, or thereabouts.” The Landholders turned toward the stairs, and Tanya ruffled her son’s hair; he hesitated a moment, watching the two women with his head slightly to one side before following his parents.

“The blond one isn’t very pretty,” he said, glancing back at his mother. “Her face is square an’ her legs are short.”

His father smiled, dropped a hand to his shoulder and shook him lightly, chiding. “That was unkind, Timmie, an’ she’s done good service. Remember what . . . ” The doors closed.

“Wake up.”

“Mmph,” Marya said. A hand shook her shoulder, gently insistent. She blinked awake, then shot bolt upright in shock. No siren, no pallet; the air smelled of cloth and wood and greenery, not the wet stone and disinfectant reek of Central Detention. Warmth, and sunlight on oak floorboards, the bright tender light of early morning in springtime, and birds singing.

Yasmin stepped back in an alarm that faded quickly. The nun rubbed granular sleep out of her eyes, looking about the room she had not seen when she tumbled into bed last night. Up under the eaves of the chateau, with a sloped roof and a dormer window, three beds—for herself, Chantal and Therese—dressers, mirrors, chairs. The furniture was plain but sound; there was a rug on the floor, and the beds had clean sheets and blankets. She crossed her arms on her shoulders, feeling at the thick flannel nightdress, warm and new. Luxury, compared to Central Detention; more comfort than the mother house of the Order, in Lwow before the War.

The serf girl yawned prettily and patted her lips with the back of one hand; she was wearing a belted satin robe. “Solange,” she called over her shoulder. “Y’all got their stuff?” To the three newcomers: “This shere Solange, Mistis Tanya’s maid.”

“Yes, cherie. I have it,” a voice from the corridor outside answered Yasmin’s question. A woman’s voice, soprano, mellow and beautiful.

“Viens, Pierre,” it continued.

A man backed into the room, dragging a wooden crate, straightened with a grunt and left. Solange edged past and stood at Yasmin’s side, looping a companionable arm over her shoulders.

Parisian, Marya thought; not just the accent, everything. She managed to make the midnight-blue pajamas look like a chic lounging outfit. A little past twenty, but she looked younger in the overlarge clothes; long sleek black hair bound up in a Psyche knot at the side of her head, big violet-rimmed blue eyes heavy with a tired satiation. Straight regular features and small-boned grace, a dancer’s movements.

“Well, well,” she said, gesturing with her free hand. Cigarette smoke lazed from the tube of dull gold in its ivory holder, a green musky herbal scent that was not tobacco. “Open your present, there’s good children.”

Chantal looked up; she had been beside her sister, who was smiling shyly at the newcomer, warmly at Yasmin. There was no warmth in Chantal’s eyes; Marya could read the thought directed at Solange: collaborationist bourgeois slut. And Solange’s answer: blowsy, overblown gutter tart.

The nun knelt by the box and undid the rope fastenings. A scent of camphor and sandalwood greeted her. The crate was full of clothes, carefully packed in thin transparent paper. Silk underwear and stockings, blouses, skirts, dresses. Unconsciously, her hands caressed the fine cloth. Chantal came and knelt beside her, running an experienced hand through the stacks; she had not grown up among textile workers and trades for nothing.

“This is beautiful work,” Chantal said appraisingly. “Pre-War.” She stiffened. “Clean but not new, a lot of it.” She looked up, full lips compressed. “This is loot!” Her hands wiped at her nightgown, as if to remove a stain.

Solange drew on the cigarette holder, held the breath for an instant, exhaled with slow pleasure. “But yes, my child; the plunder of Paris. I sat in a truck and watched them drag it from shops and apartments. And sack the Louvre; Renoirs and Manets, mostly, for our owners, the von Shrakenbergs. The fruits of victory, my old, even as you and I are.”

Yasmin reached up to give a warning squeeze to the hand on her shoulder. “C’mon, darlin’, be nice. Why doan’ I meets you at breakfast?” After the Frenchwoman had left, she yawned again and set a foot on the edge of the box.

“Should be enough’s to get you started,” she said. More sharply, to Chantal: “An’ no foolishness, hear?” She looked about, an unconscious reflex of caution. “Ahh . . . ’bout Solange. She friendly enough, once you gets to know her; bit snooty, on ’count her poppa a professor befo’ the War.” An aside: “He nicest ol’ man y’wants to meet.” Pursing her lips. “Solange . . . she an’ the Mistis ain’ just like that”—she held her index and forefinger together horizontally—“they like that, too.” She crossed the fingers, and sighed at their incomprehension. “She tells the Mistis everythin’. Watch what you talks, ’round her.” A shake of the head. “Ain’ no harm in likin’ yo Mastah, if they merits it. Lovin’ ’em”—she shrugged—“bad fo’ everybody, in the end.”

More briskly: “Anyhows, it six o’clock. Showers down the hall, bottom of the stairs; shower every mornin’, that the rule. Those as doan’ keep clean gets scrubbed public, with floor brushes. Evenin’ bath if’n you wants to. Breakfast in th’ kitchen, six-thirty; work starts seven sharp, that the general rule fo’ House servants. Midday meal at one, half hour. Supper at seven, two hours fo’ yoselfs, then lights out.” A laugh. “‘Lessen you bed-wenchin’, like we was last night. Sees you at table.”

The kitchens were abustle, a long stone-floored chamber dimly lit by small high windows; the whole looked to have been part of the Renaissance core of the chateau. The walls were lined with stoves, fireplaces, counters, plain wood, brick, black iron; above hung racks of pots, pans, knives, strings of onions and garlic. About forty serfs were eating at trestle tables that could be taken up later; a makeshift arrangement, Yasmin told Marya, until proper dormitories and refectories could be built. There was an upper table for the chefs and senior House staff.

The servants were wildly mixed. A dozen or so were like Yasmin and her father, from the old African and Asian provinces of the Domination. There were a half-dozen Germans, a scattering from as far east as China, the rest locals, mainly girls in their teens. They chattered, in French and fragments of their native tongues, and here, at the upper tables, for the chefs and senior House staff, mostly in the Draka dialect of English.

Ah, she thought. Cunning. The imported serfs would turn to English as their lingua franca, and the other house servants gradually pick it up from them, the more so as it was the language of the serf elite, the bookkeepers and foremen. The young girls would spread it in the Quarters, since most of them would marry fieldworkers and move back into the cottages. Of course, it would help that such education as there was in the Domination was in English only; writing in other tongues was forbidden on pain of death. Without a literate class, French would decline into a series of mutually incomprehensible regional patois . . . Two generations, and it would be the despised tongue of illiterate fieldhands; a century or so, and there would be a scattering of loan words in a new dialect of Draka English, and dusty books that only scholars could read.

She shivered and turned her attention to the food, crossing herself and murmuring a quick grace. Bowls passed down the tables, eggs and bacon and mushrooms, fresh bread and fruit; the Draka must have imposed their own Anglo-Saxon habit of starting the day with a substantial meal, coffee as well. She was surprised at that for a moment, until she remembered where Europe’s sources had been before the War. The Domination’s coffee planters would be anxious to restart their markets. Marya ate with slow care, a respect born of a decade of rationing and hunger, remembering grass soup and rock-hard black bread full of bark, the sticky feel of half-rotten horsemeat as she cut it from a carcass already flyblown and home to maggots. Food was life; to despise it was to despise life itself, and the toil of human hands that produced it.

An old man limped in, sitting carefully beside Solange; she gave him a perfunctory peck on the cheek and returned to pushing her eggs around her plate with moody intensity. He nodded to Yasmin and the others addressed Marya and Chantal:

“Ah, my successors.” One of the cooks put a plate of softboiled eggs in front of him, and a bowl of bread soaked in hot milk.

“A little cinnamon, perhaps?” he asked the server, and sighed as he sprinkled the bland mush and began to spoon it up. “The infirmities of my digestion,” he said to the nun. “One of the reasons you have been purchased to replace me.” He extended a hand that trembled slightly. “Jules Lebrun, professor of anthropology late of the Sorbonne, and now bookkeeper for this estate. And my daughter, Solange.”

Marya’s eyes widened in involuntary surprise; she would have sworn that this man was eighty at least . . . No, look at the hands and neck, she thought. The hair was white and there were loose pouches beneath the watery blue eyes, but that could be trauma; the limp and hunched posture due to internal injuries. He chuckled hoarsely. “Yes, yes, not so old as I look.” The chuckle turned into a cough, and Solange turned to touch him on the shoulder.

“Pere?” she asked anxiously. “Are you well?”

He shook his head, wiped his mouth with a handkerchief, patted her hand. “I am dying, child; but slowly, and it’s in the nature of things. You should be more concerned with your own health.” To Marya and Chantal, “Mesdames?”

They rose; the nun and the communist exchanged a swift glance and stationed themselves on either side, ready to support an elbow. Lebrun rapped his cane on the flags.

“I am not dead yet, ladies,” he said. A raised eyebrow. “You, I presume, are Sister Marya?” She noticed that he caught the pronunciation, difficult for a French speaker. “And Mademoiselle Lefarge, who I believe was a member of the Party. I find that I need little sleep, these days, and spent some time getting the records in order for you.”

They walked through the kitchen doors, into a central section of the house. Workmen’s tools lay scattered about; partitions had been pulled down, doors removed; the air smelled of old dust, plaster and wood, and the early morning light streamed in through tall, opened windows. Lebrun waggled his cane to either side and spoke in a dry lecturer’s tone.

“You see here the eighteenth-century additions to the chateau. A square block of three stories above the cellars; that was when the moat was filled in. Observe the changes the von Shrakenbergs are making; very much in the Draka taste. Fewer but larger rooms, you will notice. More light; marble floors, eventually. The stonework is sound—local tufa limestone—but structural reinforcements in steel are to be made.” He walked slowly, and Marya put a hand beneath his elbow in concern.

“I have some medical training,” she said quietly. “Is there—”

Lebrun glanced about, stopped for a moment, continued more quietly. “Your solicitude is appreciated, Sister, but the doctor tells me there is nothing to be done.”

“How were you hurt, sir?” Chantal asked; she had the serious, self-improving worker’s respect for learning.

He shrugged, a very Parisian gesture. “Cancer,” he said. “It started while I was in New Guinea on a field trip, then started spreading more recently. Surgery, remissions, but it is beyond that now. Exacerbated by injuries sustained in the sack of Paris.” A mirthless smile. “A tetrarchy of Janissaries were amusing themselves by kicking me to death, while they raped my wife and daughter; this was at my offices in the university, you understand. Mistress von Shrakenberg stopped them, as she was looking for some books at the time and the sight of them burning my library annoyed her. I survived, with some difficulty, as did Solange; my wife did not. It is debatable which of us was luckiest, n’est-ce pas?”

He resumed his walk. “Now, ahead of us is the oldest section of the manor: fifteenth century. Most interesting, when you see the outside you will note the checkerboard effect, red brick and white stone. Two round towers of four stories facing south, with conical roofs of black Angers slate; on the eastern side, two square towers, one three stories and one five; and the rear of the house, looking out on the wine cellar and the chapel. The most thoroughly renovated section, begun two years ago when the von Shrakenbergs took up their land grant here; fascinating to watch it change. The master tells me they plan to put a whole new wing in there, on the north side, when the more utilitarian parts of their building program are done. ‘Decent baths,’ was one of the phrases he used, by which a Draka means something rather Roman. Ah, here we are.”

They had passed into a corridor in the family apartments, the area renovated in the Draka style. Smooth glowing-white marble floors under soft indirect lighting, doors in lustrous tropical woods a dark contrast. The walls were mosaic murals, done in iridescent glass, copper, coral, gold; scenes of hunting, harvest and war. A pride of lions at bay amidst tumbled rocks, against a background of thorn trees and scrub grass; horses reared amid a tumult of huge black-coated dogs, and the lances of the shouting riders glittered. They turned a corner and were amidst a landscape of cool hills green with clipped tea-bushes and neat rows of shade trees, with a mansion’s red-tiled roof and white walls half-hidden among gardens. Workers in garish cotton garb plucked leaves and dropped them in wicker panniers slung over their backs.

“Ceylon,” Lebrun said. “The von Shrakenbergs have relatives there. The Draka took it from the Dutch in 1786; their ancestors, rather—they were still a British colony then. And here is one the mistress did the drawings for herself.”

A German farmhouse burning under a bright winter sun, the pillar of black smoke a dun club in the white and blue arch of the sky. Dead cattle bloating in the farmyard, torn by ravens, one crushed into an obscene pancake shape by the treads of a tank. Skeletal trees about the steading, their branches like strands of black hair frozen in a tossing moment of agony; a human figure hung by the neck from a branch, with snow that drifted into his open mouth. Self-propelled guns were scattered back across the fields, the long barrels elevated, their slim lines broken by the cylindrical bulkiness of muzzle breaks and bore evacuators, the vehicles half invisible in mottled white-on-gray camouflage. In the foreground a group of figures, Draka soldiers bulky in their white parkas and flared bucket helmets. They were grouped about the bow of a Hond battletank, under the shadow of its cannon.

The detail was amazing for a medium as coarse as mosaic. The nun could make out the eagle pommel of a knife, duct tape about the forestock of a rifle, a loop of fresh ears dangling from a belt—and recognized faces. Tanya von Shrakenberg rested her palms on a map spread over the sloping frontal plate; her bulbous tank commander’s communication helmet weighed down one corner. Marya stooped to peer at the other figure, a man who tapped a finger on the map and pointed with the drum-magazined assault rifle in his other hand.

“Master Edward?” she asked.

“Exactement,” Lebrun replied. “Note that there is a caption.” The two women stepped back to view the cursive script below the mural: The Progress of Mankind. Lebrun laughed with a rattle of phlegm. “Our owners’ sense of humor,” he said, and led them into a stairwell that was old stone and new wood, stained and polished.

“Observe: we are on the ground level, behind the lesser tower of the east wall. Behind there is Mistress Tanya’s bedroom; not to be entered without permission.”

He began climbing the spiral staircase, slowly and with pauses for breath. “At least I will no longer have to climb these stairs . . . The second floor, library. Not to be entered unless you have the privilege. And here—the office.”

The door swung open, and they blinked into bright daylight. The office was a room fifteen feet by thirty, the last ten jutting out onto the final stage of the square tower that formed the southeast corner of the manor. It had originally been open between the rectangular roof and the waisthigh balustrade; the renovations had closed it in with sliding panels of glass. They had been pushed back, and a pleasant scent of cut grass and damp earth was blowing in. Bookcases and filing cabinets lined the walls; two desks flanked the entrance, neatly arrayed with ledgers, blotters, adding machines, pens, telephones.

“Where you will work,” Lebrun said. He walked forward to the tower section. “The owners’ desks. Mistress Tanya uses this as a studio, as well; she says the light is good.” His cane tapped on the smooth brown tile; he settled himself with a sigh on the cushioned divan that ran beneath the windows.

Marya stepped up to look at the canvases on the walls: landscapes, several portraits of a dark-haired Draka girl in her teens. Two paintings were propped on easels. One was completed; it showed a man standing nude beside a swimming pool in bright sunlight. Master Edward, she thought. But younger. Younger and without the scars, water beading on brown-tanned skin and outlining a long-legged athlete’s body of taut muscle, broad-shouldered and thick-armed without being heavy. The other was three-quarters complete, a watercolor of a nude female figure lying on a white blanket beneath a vine trellis of pale mauve wisteria. The treatment was free, the brush strokes almost Impressionist, sensuous contrasts of dappled sunlight, flesh tones, hair.

“My daughter,” Lebrun said, pointing with his cane. “I am, I fear, something of a disappointment to her, hard as she wheedled to get me this position. She will persist in believing that I will live another twenty years; only natural, in one who has lost so much.” He peered shrewdly at Chantal. “Ah, Mademoiselle Lefarge, you are thinking that there is not one of us who has not lost much. Remember, if you please, that each of us has his breaking point, the unendurable thing.”

He waved a hand at their expressions, shaking his head and settling his head back into the cushions, eyes closed. Then they opened, rheumy but sharp. “Please, mesdames, no pity.” Slowly: “I have regrets enough, myself, but no complaints . . . I was born in 1885, did you know? In Paris; ah, Paris before the Great War . . . they do not call it la belle epoque for nothing. It was truly a golden age—not that we thought so at the time!” Another shake of the head. “Every generation thinks its own youth was a period like no other; mine had the misfortune to be right.” Silence for a moment.

“We were very arrogant . . . we believed in Reason and Democracy, and greatly in Science; together they would abolish war and poverty, unlock the secrets of the Universe, exempt us from history.” A dry laugh. “Indeed, history has come to an end, but not as we imagined. Not as we could imagine. I was born into the pinnacle of Western civilization, and I have lived to see it fall by its own folly. When I was a young man, the Domination was no more than a cloud on the horizon, an African anachronism that had somehow acquired the knack of machine industry.”

His hand tightened on the head of the cane. “Our god Progress would destroy them, we thought. Which it would have done, of a certainty, had we not committed deicide; here in the heartland of enlightenment we made the Great War, and Hitler’s war which was nothing but its sequel. That was what let the barbarians inside the walls: we were undermined from within, we conquered ourselves, we Europeans. And so I will die a slave, and my child and my grandchildren after her.” He paused. “The Draka . . . they are an abominable people, in the mass if not always as individuals. But do not blame them for what has happened; blame us, us old men. We deserve our fate although you do not. I have seen a world die, and while watching this new one being born has a certain academic interest”—he rose, his gaze going to the door at the rear of the room—“I can see what it must become, and have no desire to live in it.”

Louder, in English: “Good morning, Mistress. I trust you slept well?”

Tanya von Shrakenberg yawned as she padded into the room on silent bare feet, feeling a pleasant early-morning drowsiness. She had never been able to sleep past sunrise, no matter how late the night before. Six hours is plenty, she thought, as the two new wenches made awkward attempts at the half bow of informality, and she took another bite of the peach in her right hand.

“Mornin’, Jules,” she said. “Slept well enough, when I did.” Tanya finished the peach and flicked the stone across the room with a snap of her wrist. It struck the metal of the wastebasket with a crack and pattered down to the bottom in fragments; she pulled a kerchief from one sleeve of the loose Moorish-style djellaba she wore to wipe hands and mouth.

What I really want is bacon and hominy, she thought. And another two cups of coffee. And a cigarette. That would be against the doctor’s orders, though; cut down on the caffeine, no tobacco, restrict the fats and salts, limit the alcohol . . . Shit, the things I do for the Race, she thought. Can’t even ball with my husband. She grinned and rubbed a red mark on the side of her neck: there were some remarkably pleasant alternatives . . .

Tanya walked past the elderly Frenchman and leaned a knee against the divan. There was lawn below, and then low beds of flowers where the ancient moat had been filled in a century before. She squinted against the young sun beyond, as it outlined the beeches and poplars of the gardens that separated the manor from the first belt of orchards; light broke through the leaves with a flickering dazzle, a nimbus about shadow-black trunks and branches, and the birds were loud. She had spent some time learning them: the hollow cry of hoopoes, golden orioles fluffing or giving their distinctive raucous cat-screams. Tanya laid a hand on her stomach. Someday I will bring you here, little one, and teach you how to read the birds’ songs, she thought.

To work. She turned to the serfs. “Relax,” she said. “You’re goin’ to be livin’ under my roof the rest of your days; get used to talkin’ to me. Relax.”

The nun already had, to a schooled implacable calm that would waste no energy. Twenty-seven, Tanya thought. Probably too old to ever be completely tamed. A pity; she was brave and intelligent, the most difficult type to train, but the most valuable if you could. Chantal was easier to read and would be easier to handle, in the long run: a fiery type full of hatred. Tight rein and rope, spur her and let her break heart and spirit against it. Tanya considered her more carefully, and called up memories from the inspection at Lyon: sullen pouting mouth, full dark-nippled breasts, tucked-in waist, round buttocks and thighs, and a neatly thatched bush. Lush little Latin bunch of grapes, she thought consideringly; at the best age for her type, too—the bloom went quickly. And just the sort of filly Edward likes to ride. I’ll remind him when she’s had a few weeks to rest up; a little regular tuppin’ and a few babies could be just what’s needed to get her tamed down and docile.

“Well,” she said. “Jules here understands the workin’s well enough; just doesn’t have the energy for it. He’ll stay to show you the books for a week or two; an’ you can come to me or Mastah Edward with problems. Here.”

She walked to one side of the room, where bamboo-framed maps were hinged along one edge to the wall, and began flipping through them like a deck of cards.

“These are overhead maps of the plantation, done up from aerial photographs an’ the old French survey maps; shows all the field boundaries, crops, buildin’s, an’ so forth. An’ this”—she swung open the stack to expose one in the middle—“is how it’ll look in fifteen years, when we’ve finished. The ones in between are year-by-year plans for the alterations.” They clicked by, movement like a time-exposure photograph. Fields flowed into each other, and new hedgerows ringed them, arranged into a simpler pattern of larger plots. Internal roads snaked out from the manor and its dependencies; watering ponds and stock dams; the scatter of farmsteads and hamlets vanished, consolidated into a large village to the southeast of the Great House, except for a tiny clump at the north end of the map, where low hills marked the boundary of the property.

“Bourgueil,” she said. “That’s the old winery an’ the caves they used for storage. Those hillsides are the best fo’ quality vines.”

A quick riffle past the maps. “So, with these we can tell what’s to be planted, where, at any given time, what buildin’ projects are to be completed when, an’ so forth. Now, these show the manor, Quarters and outbuildings; as they were when we arrived, then at six-month intervals, up to completion in five years or so. This here is an overall view of the Loire Valley, from Decize to the sea, markin’ the boundaries of the plantations and where the towns and cities will be.” It was an emptier landscape than the present, the scatter of smaller towns gone, the woods spreading farther.

“Over here,” she continued, “are the personnel files. Complete personal records on every serf, updated monthly or as needed. This set with the combination lock contains the passes serfs have t’ carry off the property. These are the supply ledgers . . . ”

Marya sat and strained to absorb the information; it would be best to be efficient. The accounting system was well organized, easy to understand. Very routinized, designed to function almost automatically once the decision makers had set a policy.

“ . . . an’ these-here are the inflow-outflow ledgers,” Tanya concluded. “Mostly from the Landholders’ League—that’s the cooperative agency. We send them bulk produce, they process an’ market it; we order supplies an’ tools, they deliver. Debits an’ credits’re automatic ‘n’ itemized, sent round from League regional HQ in Tours. Over time, we’ll most likely have other outlets; estate-bottled wine an’ fresh produce direct to restaurants an’ suchlike.” She sketched in the other equipment: the photo reducer to prepare microfilms for storage and the appropriate governmental agencies, the teleprinter, the brand-new photocopier.

“Now,” Tanya said, “I, my husband, or one of the overseers will generally be spendin’ a few hours a day in here, but you two’ll be doin’ most of the routine work—I may buy another clerk if it piles up. The headman down in the Quarters has two bookkeepin’ staff of his own, an’ they’ll be coordinatin’ with you. Detailed check by one of us once a week, and the League audit is twice yearly. You work eight to seven, half-hour for lunch—it’ll be brought up—five days and a half-day Saturday with the usual holidays; as long as the work gets done, we’re pretty relaxed.”

A smile. “If it doesn’t get done, there are punishments rangin’ from bendin’ bare-ass over a chair fo’ a few licks with a belt to things you’d really rather not know about.” She pointed a finger at Marya. “You’re in charge; that makes yo respons’ble for errors by Chantal as well as your own. Chantal, remember your sister; both of you, remember that you could be scullions or fieldhands.” A warmer expression. “That’s the pain side; if things go well, plenty of, hmm, incentives. Not least, smooth-runnin’ plantation easier for everybody, serf an’ free alike.”

As she turned to go, Marya spoke. “Mistress?”

The Draka stopped and glanced her way.

“What is that?” Marya pointed; a plinth: waisthigh, covered with a white cloth.

“Ah, one of mah attempts at sculpture. ’Bout finished.”

The Draka pulled the cloth free. Beneath was the model of a tank, about a meter long. Painted clay, the nun assumed, although it had the authentic dull gray and mottle sheen of armorplate in camouflage markings. A Hond III, a squarish rectangle of sloped plates with a huge oblong cast turret—one of the midwar models, judging by the sawtooth skirting plates protecting the suspension: a commander’s craft, from the extra whip antennae bobbing above the turret. A very good model. Detailed down to the individual shells in the ammunition belts of the machine-gun pod over the commander’s hatch, cool brass gleams. And it showed combat damage, one of the forward track-guards twisted and torn, gouges, mud and dust spatters on the unit insignia of the Archonal Guard, and . . .

The nun’s face went white with the shock of recognition. Tanya’s was fluid with surprise for an instant, and then she stepped forward to pull off the Pole’s kerchief. Snapping it through the air she held it over Marya’s head, imitating the wimple of a nun’s habit.

“Almighty Thor,” she said wonderingly, shaking her head. Marya stared at her with mute horror. “We’ve met. Ahhh . . . ’43, late summer. That village—”